Jeremy VanGelder

I remember my grandma's place. It was a few acres, I think. Very narrow strip of land that eventually went up the mountain. Seemed very usable and practical. Neighbors could still be close, but you still had a good bit of land. These 1:2 or so rectangular 5 acre lots are nice for privacy, but not practical for walking to neighbors. Of course some notion of a trail or sidewalk would help a lot, and not an active, gravel logging road

A lot of medieval fields were set up as long strips. I think that had advantages for the way that fields were plowed. But it also meant that when everyone was out working, no one was too far from a neighbor.

I just found out that there is a gleaning group in my town. Last year they picked 15,000 pounds of fruit over 29 gleaning events. They get permission to pick at both private and public sites. They also provide fruit trees and supplies to anyone who is willing to host gleaning events in the future.

It is called Urban Abundance

Recently Andrew Millison visited Brad Lancaster down in Tucson Arizona. The video shows the transformation that Brad was able to achieve not only on his own parcel, but throughout the city. He worked with the city to plant rain that is collected by the curbs.

Thanks for the reminder, Hugo! It came at just the right time. During the cool months I keep a lot of firewood and other burnables under the eaves of my house. It is time to change that.

Aprovecho just put out a video about the state of their research into ceramic rocket stoves. They are finding that 6 inch wide systems work better than the 4 inch systems they used to build. The 4 inch systems encourage laminar flames that licked the pot. This caused incomplete combustion and smoke. By widening the combustion chamber they get more mixing which breaks up the laminar flow and the flames end before they can touch the pot.

Paul no longer builds RMHs that are less than 6 inches. A big reason is that he can't reach his hands in a smaller system to clean it out. That constraint doesn't exist for a small cooking rocket stove. When I want to clean mine I just turn it on it's side and tap out the ashes. It's interesting that Aprovecho came to a similar solution under a different set of constraints.

Yes, Lisa Orr has been invited to a number of gatherings to show people how to build and use rocket kilns. I believe it is really taking off in the pottery world.

Yes. I feel that. I've got a number of projects to get through. But wy commuter car needs a new valve cover gasket. That's pretty high on the priority list now. I was able to put a gutter on the new chicken coop lsat weekend. Next I will put a rain barrel under it and plumb in some poultry cups that my brother in law left for me. Ope, the coop needs some paint as well. I might whitewash it

Unloading a boat from a trailer and launching it in the water has never appealed to me. There are different amphibious boats out there. But this wheelbarrow boat is probably the simplest amphibious boat I have seen.

The folks at LowTech Magazine had the chance to build a pushcart
. It is gorgeous. It has steering brakes like a tractor. As well as headlights and tail lights. The body is made of strips of wood so there are lots of places to tie things down. And it has handles so that it can be carried like a stretcher.

If you have some old lumber or wooden slabs you could build a corduroy or plank slab